The African National Congress (ANC) Youth League will mobilise South Africans to cancel their accounts with Nedbank if the bank fails to the reinstate the sponsorship it recently withdrew from Athletics South Africa, league president Julius Malema said on Monday.

"When we called for Nedbank senior managers to engage us on this matter, they sent junior black managers. We will teach them a lesson if they continue doing that. We will mobilise people to withdraw their money and bank with other banks," Malema told thousands of University of Zululand students.

Nedbank's decision to send black managers to negotiate with youth league leaders was a strategy to pit blacks against blacks, he said.

"We want to negotiate with the senior managers and the CEO. If they don't come to us, we will mobilise the masses. We will do that easily because we have more than 600 000 members," he said.

It was wrong for Nedbank bosses to withdraw sponsorship if they were not happy with Athletics South Africa bosses.

The bank withdrew sponsorship in the wake of the Caster Semenya gender-testing controversy.

"We will teach them a lesson about the power of the masses. They may have money but we can defeat them because we have the masses."

Malema's visit to the university was part of the ANC's South African Students Congress' strategy to garner support ahead of the Student Representative Council elections.

He called on the students not to vote for Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP)-aligned student wing, Sadesmo, saying that the organisation was preaching violence.

"You can't vote for people who threaten violence. When they (IFP and its student wing) don't win, they complain of vote rigging," said Malema, referring to recent elections at the Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT).

Sadesmo walked out during the counting of ballots after MUT elections last week, complaining that the elections were rigged.

About 60% of the counting had already been done and Sasco was leading. There was fear that there would be an outbreak of violence at MUT on the eve of the writing of examinations, he said.

"[Mangosuthu] Buthelezi has taught his youth to reject democratic processes.
Now they preach violence. They think that violence and intimidation will make us afraid."

Malema said the youth wing was not afraid of the IFP, and that freedom had not come cheaply.

"We are not afraid of anybody. We respect but we do not fear."

He described IFP leader Buthelezi as a "factory fault", saying that he had betrayed the ANC by working with the apartheid government.

He also described Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille as a "fake" because she had used botox for her appearance.

"We don't have ugly women in the ANC. That is why Zille can't be a member. She has faked her face. This means that she fakes everything, including policies," Malema said.